The Path Before You

Your path will find you. It will lay footprints under your feet.

Pay attention to what comes before you and take the next step.

What Does It Mean

What does it mean to be wise?
To know how to improvise a map.

What does it mean to be clever?
To know how to turn an advantage.

What does it mean to be destroyed?
To know how to lose faith in oneself.

What does it mean to be saved?
To know how to live without fear.

The Mystery of Being Alive

The experience of being alive is so seductive that it overwhelms the mystery of being alive -- the sense of ourselves as being separate from everything else.

On one hand, we are separate. On the other, we are not.

On one hand, we are unique. On the other, there is no we. There is no I.

To be, or not to be. That is the first question of being alive.

God in a Box

I don't know what to call it. All I know is that I came from it. I move and breathe and have my very being in it. I'll return to it when I die.

I'm good with that.

Is it God? Is it the Tao? Is it Allah? Is it Gaia? Is it Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll?

No.

No box is big enough.

Opinions

Opinions help us make decisions.

Decisions help us take action.

Taking action helps us move.

But move toward what?

We move toward peace and justice when our actions are guided by compassion.

We act in confidence when our decisions are grounded in wisdom.

We make better choices when our opinions are based on direct experience.

Big Game

Life.

Must be present to win.

Watching a Cardinal

I saw a male cardinal sunlit on a fence outside my kitchen window this morning while I was washing dishes. I had to stop and watch him because the sunlight made him so red.

He dropped down to the ground and pecked at the dirt -- again, a brilliant red bird in a spotlight of sun.

Then back on top of the fence, this time his head the only red in sunlight. The rest of him was wine red in shadows.

I don't know how long I watched him flit from fence to dirt to fence again. It seemed a long time.

I'm writing all of this here as a present to you. As you picture it in your mind, it becomes your experience, too. Even the brilliant red. Especially the brilliant red.

This is one of the ways we grow beyond ourselves.

Your turn.

Cast a Stone

Cast a stone into a well.
Cast a penny into a well.
Cast a dollar into a well.

Does the well know the difference?
Or care?

Going Tribal

Why do we need an adversary?
Is it to make us stronger through the struggle?

Why must we clump together in divisions?
Is it to teach us we must depend on one another?

Why must we break apart into tribes?
Is it to keep our world small enough to handle?

Start and Start Again

Moment by moment we die.
Moment by moment we live.
In every moment we are
both dying and living.
Every moment is
a coming to life again.

My True Path

What is my true path?

Do I hack it through the forest of my life,
or do I follow it through the trees?

Or do I sit still
and give up paths altogether?

Why Small Things Matter

Large follows small.

What we do in a small way,
we will do in a large way.

Another reason to pay
attention to small things.